What did you do on your summer vacation? I spent a couple of days of mine last weekend overdosing on college baseball thanks to a combination of way too much free time, a growing desire to back away from the internet for a bit, and the awesome ESPN “Bases Loaded” channel.

Bases Loaded is the college baseball equivalent of the NFL’s Red Zone channel that has changed the way people watch football. It’s a blizzard of whip-around coverage, with one 30-second ad spliced in every 15 minutes or so, for 12 hours straight. Watching it is like chugging a case of Red Bull while trying to escape from a black hole.

For nearly 60 hours, the living room TV had the NCAA baseball regionals on. It was occasionally just background noise, occasionally main viewing, but my wife laughed as I danced from one room to the other when the studio host perked up with, “And now we take you to the Baton Rouge Regional, where LSU has something going.”

Baseball has long been a favorite sport of mine, but I think I came away from that weekend on the pseudo-diamond with an even greater love for the college version. There’s just so much goofiness and a real down-to-earth feel that’s missing in other sports that baseball wholly embraces.

Where else are you going to see a national power like LSU turn a wayward possum into a magical icon? Only in the same tournament where Wright State hit a deer with its team bus, subsequently went on a winning streak, and started putting a deer head in its dugout as a lucky charm.

Can you imagine Alabama’s football players sitting in the stands eating a hot dog and watching a game while waiting for their turn to play? In college baseball’s conference and regional tournaments, when games often run long, it’s a common sight. Look closely, and you might see coaches and players going over scouting reports on the concourse.

Obligations — in other words, work — will keep me from planting myself on the couch again for super regional weekend. It’s a shame. Watching a boatload of college baseball is soothing for the soul.

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Ernest Bowker is a sports writer for The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com